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John Boehner Successfully Enrolls In Obamacare 45 Minutes After He Blogs About 'Frustrating' Experience

John Boehner Successfully Enrolls In Obamacare 45 Minutes After He Blogs About 'Frustrating' Experience

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker John Boehner says he is signed up for "Obamacare," but only after receiving the same error message experienced by other Americans. The Ohio Republican says the process worked after he tweeted his frustration with the delay.

Boehner said Thursday he re-started the process several times, tweeted about it, and about 45 minutes later, received an email from DC Health Link confirming he was signed up.

Boehner's experience came about nine days before a deadline by which the Obama administration says the web site will improve. President Barack Obama has apologized to the nation for the problems implementing his signature law. Many Democrats are squirming over the difficulties on the eve of a midterm election year. Republicans, led by Boehner, already are aggressively campaigning against the law's congressional supporters.

A crucial system for making payments to insurers from people who enroll in that federal Obamacare marketplace has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday.

The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning before a House subcommittee that a significant fraction of HealthCare.gov—30 to 40 percent of it—has yet to be constructed.

"We still need to build the payments system to make the payments [to insurance companies] in January," testified Chao, deputy chief information officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that operates HealthCare.gov.

That so-called financial management tool was originally supposed to be part of HealthCare.gov when it launched Oct. 1, but officials later suspended its launch as part of their effort to get the consumer interface part of the site ready. The tool will, when it works, transmit the subsidies that the government is kicking in for many enrollees to offset the costs of their monthly premiums.

'Completing this lap'

Hours later, however, a colleague of Chao's at the CMS revealed some good news for HealthCare.gov, saying insurers and online insurance marketplaces will very soon be able to directly start enrolling people in Obamacare insurance who qualify for government subsidies to offset its cost.

A set of software bugs on HealthCare.gov had, for more than six weeks, prevented individual insurance company websites and web brokers including ehealthinsurance.com, getinsured.com and GoHealthInsurance.com from interfacing with the federal site to verify enrollee's subsidy eligibility. That lack of so-called "direct enrollment" had undoubtedly played a role in what has been abysmally low levels of enrollment in Obamacare insurance.

Actually she is correct. The payment part of the website is only 60-70% finished.

The information-technology systems of Obamacare are still anywhere from 30 to 70 percent unfinished, an administration official testified today.

Admittedly, the answer from Henry Chao, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services deputy chief information officer, in a House hearing today isn’t really clear. At one point he seems to indicate 30 to 40 percent of the information-technology system supporting the Obamacare exchanges is unfinished; at another point it sounds more like he’s saying 60 to 70 percent. But the news is stunning either way: HealthCare.gov was launched with some massive parts unfinished, and they are still unfinished.

The stunning part begins about three minutes into the above video. Representative Cory Gardner (R., Colo.) asks Chao what percentage of the system remains to be built.

Chao says, “I think it’s, uh, just an approximation, we’re probably sitting somewhere between 60 and 70 percent, because we still have to build the systems–”

Gardner responds incredulously, “Sixty to seventy percent that needs to be built, still?”

Chao responds, “Because we still have to build the payment systems to make payments to issuers in January.”

“Let me get this correct,” Gardner says, “60 to 70 percent of Healthcare.gov still needs to be built?”

A crucial system for making payments to insurers from people who enroll in that federal Obamacare marketplace has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday.

The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning before a House subcommittee that a significant fraction of HealthCare.gov—30 to 40 percent of it—has yet to be constructed.

"We still need to build the payments system to make the payments [to insurance companies] in January," testified Chao, deputy chief information officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that operates HealthCare.gov.

That so-called financial management tool was originally supposed to be part of HealthCare.gov when it launched Oct. 1, but officials later suspended its launch as part of their effort to get the consumer interface part of the site ready. The tool will, when it works, transmit the subsidies that the government is kicking in for many enrollees to offset the costs of their monthly premiums.

'Completing this lap'

Hours later, however, a colleague of Chao's at the CMS revealed some good news for HealthCare.gov, saying insurers and online insurance marketplaces will very soon be able to directly start enrolling people in Obamacare insurance who qualify for government subsidies to offset its cost.

A set of software bugs on HealthCare.gov had, for more than six weeks, prevented individual insurance company websites and web brokers including ehealthinsurance.com, getinsured.com and GoHealthInsurance.com from interfacing with the federal site to verify enrollee's subsidy eligibility. That lack of so-called "direct enrollment" had undoubtedly played a role in what has been abysmally low levels of enrollment in Obamacare insurance.

Actually she is correct. The payment part of the website is only 60-70% finished.

The information-technology systems of Obamacare are still anywhere from 30 to 70 percent unfinished, an administration official testified today.

Admittedly, the answer from Henry Chao, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services deputy chief information officer, in a House hearing today isn’t really clear. At one point he seems to indicate 30 to 40 percent of the information-technology system supporting the Obamacare exchanges is unfinished; at another point it sounds more like he’s saying 60 to 70 percent. But the news is stunning either way: HealthCare.gov was launched with some massive parts unfinished, and they are still unfinished.

The stunning part begins about three minutes into the above video. Representative Cory Gardner (R., Colo.) asks Chao what percentage of the system remains to be built.

Chao says, “I think it’s, uh, just an approximation, we’re probably sitting somewhere between 60 and 70 percent, because we still have to build the systems–”

Gardner responds incredulously, “Sixty to seventy percent that needs to be built, still?”

Chao responds, “Because we still have to build the payment systems to make payments to issuers in January.”

“Let me get this correct,” Gardner says, “60 to 70 percent of Healthcare.gov still needs to be built?”

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